“S.E.X,” Rosie enunciated. “You need to be having it.” She held up her hand. “And even though I would be all about you doing it with Voldemort...”
“Voldemort?”
She sighed. “He Who Must Not Be Named. But I’m a badass like Harry and Dumbledore so I actually say his name.”
I scrunched up my nose. “Is pregnancy turning you like, legit straight jacket crazy?”
“Of course not,” she snapped. “I was born straight jacket crazy.” She winked. “But you’re obviously a little or a lot dense from lack of sex so you don’t get that Voldemort was Heath and I was trying to save your fragile little heart by not uttering his name but now I have and furthermore I’ve made a big show of it, so I’ve likely made it worse. I’m going to soldier on because that’s how I do.” She gave me a sharp look that was also full of kindness. “So as much as I want you and Voldemort to sort your shit and do the nasty, I’m thinking that maybe this isn’t one of those times that we’re used to. Like the time when shit works out. And I’m going to tell you, it breaks my heart. Because of everyone who deserves to have their shit sorted with their person, it’s you, my fairy-tale loving, yoga doing, mildly insane romantic.”
She leaned forward to squeeze my hand, her eyes watering.
Rosie never cried.
Never.
And now she was crying for me and my utterly tragic non-ending.
“I’m still holding out hope because I had to wait thirty years for the man I loved to plant a baby in my womb, put a ring on my finger and make all these rules about how unsafe it is for me to build bombs with Gage while pregnant.” She rolled her eyes. “There were a lot of times I lost hope. And by lost hope I mean I slept with a lot of guys. There is no such thing as staying chaste and noble waiting for that lost love. That shit only happens in movies. It’s not healthy nor is it realistic to wait around with your legs crossed for the universe to get its cosmic shit together. So you, my dear are hot, young and I’m assuming great in bed, because Heath would not be doing his darnedest to become the world’s biggest asshole in pretending he’s not in love with you if you weren’t.” She winked to try and dull the blow of that sentence.
It didn’t work.
I poured more wine.
That wouldn’t work either.
But I still poured it.
“I’m not ready.”
Understatement of the century.
I was crying myself to sleep every night, my fists clenched under my pillow to actively stop them from reaching for my phone. For reaching for someone who wouldn’t want me anyway.
Just because he didn’t want me, it didn’t stop me from wanting him.
That’s what was most tragic about Romeo and Juliet. Not the ending—that was just stupid and dramatic—no, not enough people focused on the real tragedy. Paris’s love. Unreturned.
There was only one thing more painful than two people in love.
It was one person in love while the other moved on with their life.
That was the fricking tragedy.
Especially since people believed in time being the ultimate healer. I used to be one of those people. Until I realized that time stretched into forever, exactly the same amount of time I’d be yearning for Heath.
Tragic.
“Of course you’re not ready,” Rosie agreed. “Which is why you have to do it. Everyone does things before they’re ready. All the best people anyway. Because if we waited until we were ready, we’d be waiting for death. And there’s only so much heartbreak that you can wallow in without at least pretending you’re moving on.” She gave me a look. “Take it from someone who knows. Maybe one day you might not even be pretending.” She shrugged. “Or maybe not. But not much can be worse than the way you’re feeling right now.”
Crap.
She totally had a point.
I chewed my lip.
“You know I’m right,” she said smugly.
I narrowed my eyes.
Her own irises brightened. “Oh, a Polly glare,” she marveled. “I thought they were a myth when Lucy told me of them. You are peace, love, and fucking tofu, I didn’t think you had the ability to glare.”
I gritted my teeth. “Well, I’ve changed.”
Another understatement of the century.
Rosie’s eyes dimmed slightly. “Yeah, honey. As much as I wished you’d stay our loving and cheerful Polly forever, there wasn’t a shot in hell for that. The fact you lasted as long as you did is a miracle. And it wasn’t even the asshole that punched you in the face that did that. It was the asshole of a different kind that punched you in the chest.”
I didn’t correct her.
That I was the one doing the punching.
Because Rosie was protective of me. She and Lucy saw me through rose tinted glasses. I was always the damsel. No way would they ever believe I was the villain of this piece, even though the evidence was pretty damning.
I married another man.
Divorced that same man.
Ran off to Europe for a year.
Yet they were sure that Heath played a part in this. That it was his fault. They didn’t say anything because they wanted to protect me and talking about him was pretty much the most damaging thing they could ever do.
“Even if you’re right—”
“I’m always right,” Rosie interjected.
“Well even if you are, it’s not like men are lining up at my door to date me.”
She scoffed. “They would if they knew your address.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Do not do something like hand out my home address to strangers on the street.”
She scowled. “I wouldn’t do that.”
I raised my brow.
“Well they wouldn’t be strangers, I’d ask their name, do a full background check and then give them your address,” she relented.
“No.”
“Fine,” she muttered. “But seriously, you know you’re a hot piece of ass. You’d get a date like that.” She clicked her fingers. “Plus, you’re not exactly new at the dating scene. You’ve had a boyfriend for every day of the week. You know where to find them.”
“I knew,” I corrected. “Before...” I trailed off.
Before what?
Before Heath?
Before Craig?
Before Heath...again?
Before I became horribly aware of how empty I’d made my life so I didn’t have to face the depth of my suffering?
“Okay, well, just get one of those phone apps, it’s what the kids do these days.” She’d snatched my phone off the coffee table before I could stop her.
“Rosie!” I cried. “I’m not going to date a guy on an app.”
Her nails clicked against the screen. “Of course you are.”
And like most times, Rosie was right.
“So what do you do, Polly?”
Crap.
I’d known this question would come up.
It was like the conversational blueprint in first dates.
What do you do? Where are you from? How many siblings do you have? What’s your sign? What’s the depth of your childhood trauma?
I’d had a lot of different answers to this in the past. Barista. Waitress. Dog groomer. Personal assistant. Sous chef at a raw food café.